Onio (20 page)

It
was two days after the fire nearly destroyed the laundry facility and the
secret hospital wing situated above it. The traitor, Lt. Andy Spiles, and the
monster Spiles helped break out of captivity, had a two day head start. O’Dell
gritted his teeth in rage. He should have known that Spiles didn’t have the
balls to carry through with the mission. There was too much sensitivity…too
much compassion in the man’s mild brown eyes; O’Dell had seen it. He knew that
Spiles didn’t have the nerve to follow protocol when it came to dealing with
the sasquatches.

Now,
the whole program was being put on hold. The “cleaners,” or disposal unit, had
come in the aftermath of the fire and spirited the rest of the test subjects
away to a more remote location, one not nearly as state of the art as this had
been before Spiles started the blaze. The only good thing about this whole
affair was that, so far, the program remained top secret, and now O’Dell had
the Delta Forces at his back.

These
soldiers have some steel in their backbones
, O’Dell thought approvingly, and
glanced up at the soldier who stood at ease in front of the desk. “How many
subjects were you able to retrieve, Captain?” O’Dell allowed his own anger and
frustration to pepper the question. This team leader needed to know who was in
charge here, and he needed to know it immediately, without reservation.

In
his many years of service, O’Dell had found Delta Special Ops forces to be unequaled
when it came to getting the job done. However, he also knew that often there
was a dog pack mentality amongst this type of soldier. An alpha dog needed to
take control immediately and emphatically, or else he would be eaten alive by
the collective pack.

Parks
snapped upright and barked, “Seven subjects were re-located, sir. The others
were disposed of immediately. The mission is under control, sir!”

Flushing
furiously, O’Dell clenched his jaw. Only seven left! He raged mentally,
although his countenance remained calm and still. There were twenty-three test
subjects only a few days ago, and now, thanks to an overzealous surgeon and a
traitorous lieutenant, he was down to only seven sasquatches! Which reminded
him….

Turning
to the captain, O’Dell said, “Sit down, Captain.”

Parks
sat in the straight backed chair in front of O’Dell’s desk and waited while O’Dell
shut his computer down and closed the blinds that covered the office window. Satisfied,
apparently, that the room was secure, O’Dell walked over to a battered credenza
and grabbed two dusty tumblers from the tray on top.

Sitting
back down with a sigh, O’Dell opened the bottom drawer of his desk, producing a
bottle of scotch. “Drink?” he offered.

Knowing
better than to decline a superior officer’s offer, Parks nodded and said, “Gladly
sir, thank you.”

O’Dell
poured a scant finger of liquor into Park’s glass and put the bottle back in
the desk drawer. Rising again, he went into the lavatory and filled his own
glass with water from the sink. Returning to the desk he opened a drawer, found
two Alka-Seltzer tablets, and dropped them into the water. Leaning forward
slightly, the colonel gestured for Parks to come nearer and whispered, “Doctor
Abernathy and his staff need to be taken care of. Do you understand me?”

***

As
Parks gazed into the CO’s manic blue eyes and the tablets fizzed and popped in
his right ear, he truly understood, for the first time, that O’Dell was as
cat-crazy as rumored, and that he would need to keep a tight leash on his
troops. Most of his men were outstanding soldiers and good kids, handpicked for
their individual talents in hand-to-hand combat, weaponry, or technical skills.
One of Parks’s boys was actually a lousy soldier but could sweet-talk anything
on four wheels into running smoothly. Still another one of his raw recruits was
a genius in computer technology, a skill that he himself was sadly lacking.

Parks
knew that a CO like O’Dell, though, if left to his own devices, would turn his
boys into killing machines, as unfeeling and remorseless as machine guns shot
into a crowded marketplace. However, orders were orders and, for now, O’Dell
was HIS commanding officer. “Yes, sir,” he answered promptly.

Nodding
in satisfaction, O’Dell sat back in his chair and rubbed tired eyes. “How long
before the new facility is up and running, Captain? Have you heard?” he
murmured.

Parks
dreaded giving the answer and figured there would be an angry outburst when he
said, “Another two…possibly three months, sir.”

 It
wasn’t his fault and he was only giving the engineer’s closest estimate, but he
knew that secret, underground testing facilities, with state-of-the-art
laboratories and fully equipped military bunkers, did not happen overnight. The
colonel knew that as well as Parks did, but that never stopped a CO from
venting his spleen on a junior officer.

Therefore,
Parks was relieved when O’Dell took the news calmly, and said, “Keep me
apprised of the situation, Captain. I would like you to keep a fire burning
under the engineers’ asses, as well.” Pausing, he added, “I assume there’s no
word on Spiles’s location?” O’Dell’s blue eyes bored into Parks’s own.

Parks
shook his head, “No, sir. I’m sorry. We tracked his Toyota Tundra to his house
on base. It was there, but no sign of Spiles. There was evidence of another
vehicle in the carport and we’re running analysis on it, but, for now, Spiles
is in the wind.”

O’Dell
pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Well, let me know when you pick up
his trail; and Captain, let me know when that other business is finished, yes?”

Park’s
snapped a salute, “Yes sir!”

“Dismissed,”
O’Dell responded, watching as the captain turned on his heel and marched out of
his office, closing the door behind him as he left.

***

 O’Dell
turned back to his monitor and pressed the “ON” switch. He watched the ghostly
green satellite image of Spiles and the sasquatch, which, for some uncanny
reason, looked familiar to him, as they exited the facility and walked away
into the night. Both of the escapees’ heat signatures burned brightly through
the infrared camera sensors, even though every soldier on duty that night
claimed that the only person they noticed leaving the burning building was
Lieutenant Spiles.

What
damn trickery is this now
? He wondered, uneasily. It seemed to him that every
time he turned around the sasquatches were up to something new and dangerously
strange. He knew that they were telepathic and pyro-kinetic, amazingly strong
and as fast as the wind. He didn’t know, however, that they could disguise
themselves with some sort of stealth technology.

He
could only imagine the hard-on his superiors would gain at this latest bit of intel.
That was why he had all the backing he needed to pull this mission off. His
commanders wanted to use the sasq as soldiers. Despite O’Dell’s personal
feelings toward the monsters, even he could see the advantage of developing
them as a master species of fighters. With the right amount of training, troops
of sasquatch soldiers would assure victory for any ground assault launched by
the United States military.

O’Dell
closed his eyes and, weaving his fingers together behind his head, leaned back
for a brief catnap. The sasq would never let it happen though…he knew it. He
saw their stubborn refusal even as the life force in their brownish green eyes
dwindled and died. O’Dell fell asleep, and for a few moments, he dreamed of a
time long ago, when he was just a boy. His eyes moved rapidly back and forth
and his lips quivered with remembered agony.

It
was a hot, muggy late summer day when he and his beautiful sister, Tonya,
decided to go for a swim in the river, close by their family home in Missoula,
Montana. He was fourteen-years-old and Tonya, at ten years old, was as tender
and ripe as a new peach. Her long blond hair hung to her waist in sweaty splendor
and her wide, cornflower blue eyes were both warm and mischievous. Terry loved
her like no other, and indeed, there was hardly anyone else in his life to
love.

His
mother had died giving birth to her daughter and their father, Kevin O’Dell,
was a cold and cruel man, who seemed, for some reason, to hold Terry
responsible for anything and everything that had gone wrong in his sad, bitter
life. He was career military, a staff sergeant for the USMC, and thus was on
duty most of the time, to the vast relief of his two offspring. Whenever he did
come home though, life turned into a nightmare for Kevin’s children. There was
never a question asked that did not hold a threatening question mark on the end
of it, like some poisoned and perilous triple-barbed fishing hook lurking deep
in darkened waters.

The
house was never clean enough, although the children were careful to keep
everything their nanny Carrie cleaned exactly as she left it. Kevin never tired
of telling his kids how disappointed he was in them, and his baleful blue eyes
followed them wherever they went, like the malevolent gaze of a haunted
painting.

On
the fateful day of little Tonya’s disappearance, Kevin was, thankfully, gone. O’Dell’s
eyelids twitched with remembered horror as, in his dream, he looked up from a
new, green hatch of polliwogs, anxious to share his find with his little
sister. His eyes searched the sandy beach and up further into the scrub grass
and aspens that shook fitfully in the summer breeze. He couldn’t see her, and
his heart thudded in his skinny chest. Standing up and peering around, Terry
called her name.

“Tonya!
Where are you?” he cried. Grasshoppers hidden in the tall grass ceased their
incessant buzzing for a second and Terry’s ears popped with fear. He ran up the
embankment and turned this way and that, searching for his sister. Then, he saw
something in the near distance that made his mouth drop open in wonder.

A
huge, hairy monster stood over Tonya with a bunch of wild daisies in its hands.
Terry saw that Tonya was smiling and chatting away while the beast stared down
at her with a half-smile on its lips. Long, shiny fangs glittering in the heavy
sunlight, the monster gave Terry a measured glance and spoke to him without
using any words.

The
voice was not clear…it was more like a strong emotional impulse, communicated
with the deadly accuracy of an arrow hitting its mark, than anything else.
Terry felt the words pierce his mind nevertheless, and staggered under the
impact. “Do not interfere child, the girl is mine now,” the monster uttered.

Then
it picked Tonya up in its arms. Terry heard his sister’s laughter and her voice
rang like a bell in the quiet afternoon air. “I love you, Two Horses,” she
giggled, and threw her skinny arms around the beast’s neck.

Terry
frowned. Did Tonya know this creature? Had they met before? He recalled the
many times she had spoken of her imaginary “friend,” and remembered Carrie’s
sage words of advice when she shrugged and declared that many children had
imaginary friends but grow out of that stage of development, eventually.

With
one final glance at Terry, the beast started to walk away with Tonya in its
massive arms. She still giggled with joy, as if nothing was wrong, as if her
brother’s whole world was not disappearing in front of his eyes.

“Tonya,
stop! Come back!” he screamed but, like some sort of magic trick, both Tonya
and the monster seemed to shimmer and vanish into the forest. He ran as fast as
he could but there was nothing to see. He ran some more, tripped, and fell over
a mossy tree trunk. Landing on the leafy forest floor with a twisted ankle and
blood leaking from a cut on his lower lip, Terry knew that his sister was
gone…forever.

The
next day when the search and rescue team found him and took him to the
hospital, he did not speak a word about what he saw and who took his beloved
sister. Later that week, when his father took a belt to his backside to beat
the truth out of him, Terry refused to speak.

Even
now, almost fifty years later, Terrance O’Dell never spoke about what that
monster, that sasquatch, did to his sister, but he remembered…and he swore
revenge.

Chapter 24

Andy
Spiles checked his rear view mirror for the fifteenth time in the last thirty
minutes. It was pitch black outside but he was well aware that Hughies and
Apache gunners operated best at night, under cover of darkness. He reached down
and adjusted the heat lever on the Lincoln’s dashboard. His passenger put out
so much ambient heat that, although the temperature was probably close to
twenty degrees outside, the car’s interior was almost muggy with warmth.

Blue
stirred in the backseat. “Are the black birds coming again, Ann?” he murmured.

Andy
shook his head and answered, “No, I don’t think so. Keep on listening though,
okay? If you hear the vibration, let me know.”

“‘Kay,”
Blue responded and hunkered down in the seat again.

Thank
God for that huge backseat
, Andy thought. He shook his head. Although his
beautiful, new 2011 Toyota Tundra was a marvel of technology and not too much
of a gas-guzzler, he knew there was no way he and Blue would have fit inside it
comfortably. Already they had driven from Fort Bliss, north on highway 54 and
due east for a while on Interstate 40, before heading northeast again on I-25.